Scorpia Rising VII - Resurrection
by sevenofmine
Summary: The criminal organisation Scorpia from the Alex Rider books by A. Horowitz is back. And so are the Montebello sisters, new foes to the NCIS team of Washington. Recruited by the new Scorpia team, they encounter again the team of Gibbs - and especially Agent DiNozzo who has always seemed to have a special relationship to Caroline Montebello. Summary of previous stories inside.
1. Chapter 1

**I don't own anything. Scorpia and Scorpia Rising are elements of the Alex Rider book series.**

**"What happened before" is not** _very_** important, but it won't hurt you reading it.**

**You should, however, take a look at the description of the main characters.**

What happened before:

_Scorpia Rising I:_ An old enemy of Tony hires the criminal organization Scorpia to kill him. They send the hit man Caroline after him but the NCIS team can uncover the identity of the organization's members and only Caroline, her younger sister Katarina and their boss Dr. Medici could flee.

_Scorpia Rising II:_ On 09/11/12 the National Museum at Washington DC is attacked by a plane and Tony gets wounded and hospitalized. Only moments before the hospital blows up by a bomb attack, he gets rescued by Caroline and Katarina and he learns that they are working for a new organization, also called Scorpia Rising, who is responsible for those attacks. The NCIS team finds out again the plans of Scorpia and the sisters help them with killing its leaders. Tony is freed but the sisters managed to disappear once more.

_Scorpia Rising III:_ In the morning of their wedding, Ziva gets abducted from her father to Israel and Tony decides to ask the sisters for help. Together they enter Israel and with the help of a terroristic group, they are able to free Ziva and Tony has to shoot Eli David to escape. Four months later, Ziva is pregnant and Tony gets arrested by FBI for the murder of Eli David. Fornell wants to bring him to a safe house because the murder of the Mossad director by an NCIS agent off-duty is the reason for growing tensions between Israel and the USA. When Mossad agents try to kill them, Tony can fleet with the help of Katarina.

_Scorpia Rising IV:_ Tony and Katarina are on the run in Malibu, Sacramento and San Francisco. She gets arrested on Hawaii and Caroline helps Tony to make an agreement with the Hawaii special unit 5-0. Officer Danny Williams accompanies Tony to the CIA headquarters on the East Coast so that he can help clarifying the circumstances under which he has killed Director David. The plane gets kidnapped but Caroline manages an emergency landing. Ziva who hides in a Safe house of FBI is attacked by Mossad agents but Caroline rescues her. About six months later, Caroline is in Mexico and a friend asks her to help him torture a Mossad spy inside NCIS who he has kidnapped from Washington DC. He hopes that he can blackmail the governments with the information he gets.

_Scorpia Rising V:_ Katarina flees from prison and she hides with her sister in Mexico City where she tortures an NCIS cop from Washington who actually works for Mossad. Ziva in the meanwhile has given birth to her and Tony's daughter and goes into maternity leavewhich is other expression for voluntary suspension for the previous events. Both the NCIS team and some Mossad agents leave to Mexico City to retrieve the dead agent/spy. One of the Mossad agents however recognizes Tony as the guy who killed director David and decides to kidnap him to Israel. Ziva is brought into witness protection and McGee decides to take action and ask the sisters for help. Caroline meets with McGee but sees a déjà-vu in the rescue situation of Tony with the one of Ziva. McGee travels to Italy to meet the siblings with the help of Cui Dai Ling who dies at the airport. McGee eventually finds Katarina and with Ling's help they're able to find Tony who is then rescued by McGee and Caroline. At the safe house, the CIA agent Rose dies and a person in a biker suit kills Ziva.

_Scorpia Rising VI: _Lee Danes, someone Tony had brought into prison, is set free and orders several killings of his enemies. He also ordered the killing of Ziva because she was Tony's wife. When he set Tony's house on fire, he and Caroline barely escape. Caroline is then brough to the NCIS HQ and admits that Katarina and her had been working for Danes, but didn't know about his relation with Tony. Due to certain circumstances, Fornell suspects Caroline's new girlfriend Janet to be working for Danes.

Janet finds out where Tony's is hiding and and goes to kill him, leaving Caroline tied up in a hotel room. Fornell and Gibbs find Caroline in time, and they all drive to the safehouse where Caroline kills two men saving Gibbs' and Fornell's life but gets stabbed by Janet who is then shot by McGee.

**Characters:**

**_Caroline_ is 29/30 years old and has studied computer science in Great Britain. She became known to the team as a member of the Italian organization Scorpia and after the second known destruction she continues working as contract killer. She has two daughters, four year old Scarlet and four month old Carey.**

**_Katarina_ is 26/27 years old and Caroline's younger but more aggressive sister. She has studied Physics at Cambridge. She becomes a member of Scorpia in Scorpia Rising II but then works together with her sister as assassin. She had wanted to marry her fiancée Edoardo about one year before Scorpia Rising III but he got shot during their wedding ceremony.**

**_Edoardo_ was Katarina's deceased fiancée. His brothers took revenge for his death and Katarina starts a relation with _Federico_ in Scorpia Rising III. He and his younger brother _Alessio_ died in Scorpia Rising IV.**

**_Yassen_ was Caroline's boyfriend and father of Scarlet. He died in front of them both due to a car bomb. His younger _brother_ works as high member of the Sanchez cartel in South Mexico and he asks Caroline to torture a spy for him.**

_**Cui Dai Ling**_**was the ex-girlfriend of Katarina. Ling died while helping McGee to rescue Tony. She died in Scorpia Rising V.**

* * *

**SCORPIA: (according to wikipedia)  
**

_SCORPIA (acronym for Sabotage, Corruption Intelligence and Assassination) is a criminal organisation, and the series'_ (Alex Rider book series by Anthony Horowitz)_ main antagonist. Despite not appearing until the fifth novel Scorpia, their influence was felt in the very first novel, as it was revealed when they appeared in Snakehead that they were responsible for supplying the virus Sayle uses. Scorpia has had a great deal of influence on the Alex Rider series, and are mentioned at least three times. They were formed in Paris in the early 1980s by spies and assassins from several governments who, fearing they would lose their jobs when the Cold War ended, decided to go into business for themselves. They split profits equally and are assigned tasks alphabetically. After many years of work, they are now responsible for a tenth of the world's terrorism._

* * *

Chapter 0

She gasped for breath. She suffocated, she felt the air going thinner but she did not faint again. Everything was black around her. She panicked. She breathed heavily, six, seven, eight times and then she lay calmly back into bed again. Slowly, she tried to open her eyes. The colours were dancing around her and it took a while until she managed to see clearer. She spotted an uncomfortable armchair, an old TV hanging from the ceiling and a half-opened door. _A hospital_, she knew immediately.

She sighed and tried to get enough air again. She sat up and wanted to rub her itching legs but her right hand was handcuffed to the bed. "Fuck," she cursed in a low voice. She lay back again, she couldn't get enough air. _Don't panic_, she told herself. _Everything is going to be alright._ Her chest lifted and lowered very quickly and closed her eyes again. She tried to calm down and took her time. Then she tried again to sit up.

With her left hand she gently pushed away the blanket. She wore hospital clothes, white with light green dots. _Tasteless._ Then she noticed a dark brown dot. She pulled up her dress and saw the thick and wide bandage, stretching across her belly and around her waist. It had soaked and now the blood was leaking through. She felt a warm drop of the dark red liquid flowing down her dark skinned belly and reaching her piercing. _Mother of God_, she thought and leaned back against the bed.

While trying to retrieve the memory of how she got here – leading to no conclusion – she already looked for a way of how to escape. If she was cuffed to the bed, there was most definitely a police officer guarding her room from outside. Or they would constantly watch the footage of the CCTV in the upper right corner of the small room. Either way, she had to try to escape.

She had enough contacts to disappear and to hide, but no enough to escape a charge once she was accused and brought to jail. And with the recent events, they definitely were able to incriminate her successfully. With time, she could make these accusations disappear into the depth of politics and chain of evidence. But right now, she had to get out of here.

She touched her hair with her left hand. No hairpins. They must have removed them before the operation. Her piercing was still there. Probably not enough metal, it was a composite anyway. She regarded it for a while. It wasn't as long as a hairpin, but if she got it open, removed the shimmering fake stone and get the small plastic rod, she could try to fumble the handcuff open with it. However, it was worth a try and she made a mental note to get a new piercing stone.

It took her longer than usual but after a time that felt like two hours she heard a click inside the handcuffs. With a few more tricks she was free. If they really watched her via camera, she needed to be quick. She jumped out of the bed – perhaps a bit too fast. She grabbed hold on it and touched her front head. It hurt like hell but she had no choice. She stumbled forwards, looking around but finding no clothes. She had been right. There was a police officer standing outside the door.

He spotted her the moment she saw him but before he could protest her flat hand hit his trachea and he panted for air. She pulled his leg forwards using her left foot and he went down to the floor. He wanted to get up but she grabbed his head with her right hand and smashed it against the wall, leaving the officer unconscious. Without hesitation she looked around and when she noticed that no one was there, she dragged the officer back into the room, but not far enough to appear on the camera. She was right between the angles of the room's CCTV and the one of the hallway.

She quickly undressed the officer and changed into his clothes, not forgetting his gun and badge. The uniform was two sizes to big and a man's one but she didn't care. With toil she now spotted the nearly naked man's name, Officer Max Jackson. _Well, could be Maxime_, she thought and went back into the empty hallway. Gaining more self-confidence in her walk, she explored her surroundings. She left the hallway and entered a more populated part of the hospitals. Nurses were rushing by and doctors were having too less time for their patients. She had a look on the operation plans and noticed that two days had passed since her last memory – since her girlfriend had betrayed her.

She walked down the staircase and picked the mobile phone from an elderly man's pocket. It was a very old model and perhaps even a prepaid one. She went out a side exit and thought about what number to dial first. She decided for her sister. She typed in the code for Italy and tried the mobile phone. It rang nine times but no one answered it. She sighed and dialled her second phone's number. Nothing happened either. _Second last chance_, _before I have to take the emergency call number._ It rang four times now and finally, Katarina answered. "Pronta?" she asked in Italian.

"Sono io," Caroline said sighing.

"Caroline?" Now it seemed that Katarina was awake. Deducing from the position of the sun, Caroline guessed it must be late evening in Italy. "What the hell happened? I only heard you'd be stabbed and nothing more ever since."

"Calm down," the older sister said and started walking away from the hospital. "They probably had problems contacting you."

"I disappeared a little more since Tony had been brought to the safe house. Where are you? Are you alright?"

"Just woke up with a severe looking stab wound through my belly. I assume that bitch Janet missed the vital organs. I don't feel well but I need to hide. I knocked out a cop and wear his uniform, so not very unobtrusive."

"Get out of the bloody states, Caroline. Get into a hiding and call me when you're under the radar, okay? Just avoid whoever wants to kills you."

"Oh, what a great advise. Where are you? The Bertani cartel had been taken down, we lost a few friends there, you know that."

"Things have changed. I'll explain when we're on a secure line. Now, get out of trouble and we can talk again." With that, she was gone. Caroline rolled her eyes and threw the mobile phone into a trash bin. Although they would already know that she used it, she had wiped away her fingerprints as much as possible. It was damn hard to find a usable fingerprint with enough minutiae anyway. And since she took out and broke both simcard and the accumulator, no one could trace her calls. She hurried along the busy main road, attracting attention and respect in the uniform of an officer of law and started her search for a new mobile to use.

* * *

Meanwhile in Italy Katarina turned around in her bed and looked at the man she had been sleeping with. He was silently snoring next to her. _What a waste_, she thought. He was quite an admirable assassin, but unfortunately working for the wrong cartel. And even with the right money they couldn't be sure if he was truly loyal. She grabbed the knife under her pillow and with the other hand she touched his cheek. She bent forwards and tenderly kissed his lips.

"What's up?" he moaned, just being torn out of a horny dream. "What have I been missing?"

"Your death," she answered calmly and pushed the knife into his belly. The flesh eased off and contracted, the bed clothes soaking with blood. She pulled out the knife and cleaned it. With all the time in the world, she stood up and got dressed. She didn't need to care for forensics, this town's cops belonged to the Bertani cartel anyway. She left the house without wasting a second glimpse at the dying hatchet man.

Having arrived at her little flat, she cleaned the knife first with hot water, then with highly molar hydrochloric acid. "That should do," she said to herself and stored the knife in the toilet box. Texting a message to Sergio that her mission was accomplished, she got rid of her clothes and started the washing machine. She waited while checking her latest emails and then hang up the clothes to dry. It was already dawning when she doze off in her own night clothes in her own bed.

**Please, please, please review!**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It was another Monday that Tony had not been looking forward to. It had taken quite a while to not only cope with Ziva but also with the fact that he would not get revenge for the unjustified killing. But after all, he had their beautiful daughter and tried to carry on. Kathleen was no five months old and although Tony had not wanted to, he had to give her to day care while he was working. Twice a week he visited a psychiatrist and only for the sake of his child and to honour Ziva, he tried to get his life back.

So it was early morning when he entered NCIS headquarters in Washington with three paper cups of coffee in his hands. Silently, he put down one on Gibbs' and one on McGee's desk and sat down behind his own computer. When he had started it and was checking his mail, McGee entered and greeted him, muttering something about having been stuck in a traffic jam. "Tony, this is slowly getting weird," he commented when he activated his computer.

"What is?"

"You, bringing us coffee every morning."

"It's a new start, McGee. I have to do some things differently than I did before," Tony only said and jumped up when Gibbs came in.

"Dead marine in the North. Looks like a drug trade that went wrong but local police wants us to check it nevertheless," he shortly explained and his two Special Agents ran after him to catch the lift.

It was a sunny afternoon and the crime scene was located outside of an abandoned petrol station. It smelled of old fuel and urine and the police had to shoo away some homeless persons already who had camped to sleep right next to the corpses. Tony started to make photos while McGee draw an outline of the station and the three bodies lying around. One of them was a marine on shore leave, 40-year old Commander Thomas.

When both agents started to bag and tag the crime scene evidence, Gibbs, after having talked to police and the homeless persons who were kept there for witness protocols, approached Ducky to get some news about the bodies.

"All three of them died between nine and one o'clock last night," Ducky said before the boss could ask any questions and pulled out the heat measuring device out of the corpse's backside. "As Tony pointed out, similar bullets have been found inside two of them, probably from the same gun. Our marine, however, was shot by a different one."

"So this _was_ a drug trade gone wrong. The Commander comes here with friends, meets the other traders. They disagree and start shooting each other," Gibbs said.

"That means that the killer of our marine is still out there, probably with some friends. And at least one person had been accompanying Commander Thomas as the gun that was found on his body does not match the bullet cases we found around here and which match the ones that were through-and-through of these bodies," Tony states.

"Then let's find the other guys," Gibbs ordered.

"Why isn't Gibbs here?" Abby asked when Tony entered her lab.

"He was called to a video conference with the director who is currently on a diplomatic mission with the CIA boss in France," the agent explained and positioned himself behind Abby with a good view on the computer screen.

"How are you?"

"Fine. Fine...," Tony said and met Abby's dog-like gaze. "I cope," he added and nodded over to the screen to signify her to start her presentation. But she kept staring. "Kathleen is far too young and will never get to know her mother. I visit a psychiatrist twice a week. I need time. And I need distraction."

With that answer, Abby agreed and nodded her sympathy. "The bullets that were found in Commander Thomas' body match both guns of the other two men. As no other hulls were found, there were probably only two of their party. Due to fingerprints and dental recognition, I could identify the two drug traders as Les Markus and Steve Johnson. Markus is wanted for drugs traffic already and he has been on the run since a drug bust at his house three days ago. Johnson is also known to the police, he was arrested twice for physical abuse of his ex-wife."

"Can you give me the addresses of them?"

"I already sent them McGee five minutes ago. The bullets in Thomas' body match the two guns of Markus and Johnson and the bullets found in these two corpses match the 9mm of Thomas but also another half-automatic. It's an old model and hardly in use anymore. So it was easy to trace back. There're only fifty owners living at the East coast, five of them in the vicinity of one hundred miles around the crime scene. I could narrow it down to these two men, both possessing the half-automatic. It should be easy to find out which one fired the shot."

"Thanks, Abs."

"Hey, I'm not finished yet. You gave me plenty of evidence to sort out. So I did ballistics and identification of the people involved. You said that no drugs were left at the crime scene and that the only survivor of this shooting left with whatever they were trading."

"Yes, we assumed that because he did not seem to have been hurt during the shooting."

"There were foreign fibres inside the jacket of Johnson, also where I found some traces of Heroin. The fibres probably belong to a blue pullover. So if you can find one belonging to either of these suspects, I can prove him to have touched Johnson's jacket in a kind of way," Abby explained and pointed towards the tissue of the jacket's inner pocket lying next to the microscope. "In addition to that, Ducky sent me some samples of white powder he found inside the victim's stomach, along with rests of plastics. Markus had probably swallowed two to three small packages of Heroin which burst open after a while. If he hadn't been shot, he would have died anyway a few hours later. The white powder was Cocaine. So they were probably dealing with different types of drugs."

"Perhaps this was a test meeting. They brought different samples, Heroin, Cocaine and tested out which one was best to be sold," Tony said. Suddenly, he had an idea and ran upstairs to meet Gibbs and McGee standing in front of the plasma screen. He told them what he just learnt from Abby and added, "perhaps Thomson met these two dealers to test out which drugs to buy and sell on the next ship he was ordered to."

McGee had a quick look into some files. "He would sail off with the USS Chekov in two days. We should check out if there was indeed drug business going on that cruiser," he suggested.

Gibbs nodded. "I'll check the suspect's houses with backup and tell local police to do the house searches of the victims. You two go to the ship and have a look around."

It had become late evening when Tony and McGee returned to Washington DC and so they stopped at the Chinese to get some take-away food for the late evening work. While McGee ordered dinner, Tony drove to the daily care and picked up Kathleen and brought her with them to the headquarters. Kathleen was already asleep when they arrived at HQ.

"Now I know how all the single mums feel like," Tony complained when placing Kathleen safely in her cradle next to his desk on the floor.

McGee and Tony were only half-way through their meals when Fornell came in. "Working so late?" he asked.

"We're obviously not the only ones," Tony responded.

"Is Gibbs here?"

"No, he's still out. Why?" McGee wanted to know.

"I just received a report from local police. Caroline Montebello escaped from hospital in disguise as a police officer. She left the guy she stole the clothes from unconsciously in underpants in the hospital room."

"Quite her style. Where's she now?" Tony said not very surprised.

"That's the problem. She escaped yesterday morning and the FBI was able to follow her but finally lost track. Now, we don't have any idea. She's wanted for serious charges and we control both borders and the airway. There's hardly a chance for her to get out of the US. We're very confident to find her. She's not stable and needs medical attention."

"When she escaped one day ago, why tell us now?" McGee asked.

"For obvious reasons," Fornell said and nodded to Tony who only sighed in response. "I'm tired of arguing," he simply said and continued eating.

"I just wanted to let you know," Fornell said and left the building again.

**You do know that I see how many people read this story? So if you don't want to review, would you at least tell me why you don't review? :)**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

**Any relation or alikeness to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The following happenings might rely on actual events, but are altered so that no tracing back nor any identification of the real events are possible. I might have to remind you that this is a purely fictional story with purely fictional characters.**

It was two days later when they successfully caught the fourth man invited to the drug testing at the petrol station and another day later they arrested two other marines for being involved into traffic on the USS Chekov. It had been a successful day but when Tony and McGee came back to the NCIS HQ around midday, they knew that something new was going on there.

The new director, newly transferred from NCIS San Diego to Washington, was sitting in Tony's chair and waiting for them.

"Director Pearce," McGee greeted him.

"Agents," he answered to the three of them.

"Something we should know of?" Gibbs asked sceptically.

"Your team looks a bit small. I have been looking for a new agent for your team in the past few days. I am very sorry for the loss of your partner and wife, Agent DiNozzo, but we need to get a new member for your team."

"At least you didn't say 'replacement'," Tony sighed, "who do you have in mind?"

"I have eliminated most of the applicants down to three possible agents. All of them are currently waiting in different interrogation rooms. Gibbs, I want you to make a choice." With those words, he stood up from Tony's chair and walked upstairs. The three agents followed him.

Special Agent Marissa Jones had graduated from Police Academy at the age of 25, then worked at the Mexican border for two years until she was finally promoted to the sexual assaults unit in Sacramento. She had started leading cooperation between police and NCIS there and had waited for a chance to switch to NCIS herself. She was tall, had a little Texan accent, had long, dark brown hair and bluest eyes. But Tony couldn't see these eyes. He could only see someone sitting at the desk that belonged to both Kate and Ziva. And now, someone else was sitting there. Someone who did not belong there.

"Tony, you have to accept that we need a new team member," McGee finally said when Marissa was on an away investigation with Gibbs. Tim came over to Tony with his chair.

"Yes, I do accept that we need someone new. But I do not accept her as a replacement."

"No one can replace Ziva. But remember when you first met Ziva? You thought that she could never be as good as Kate and that you could never become friends. And what now? You had wonderful weeks with Ziva as your wife and she gave you a wonderful baby you now care for."

"You want me to marry Marissa?"

"Tony, sometimes I think Gibbs has hit you a bit too often," McGee answered to the sarcasm with rolling his eyes. Then he rolled back to his desk. "All I'm saying is to give her a chance."

Time passed and although it had seemed impossible at first, Marissa grew into the team and became accepted – at least by McGee who was glad to be called probie now only once in a while. It was a rainy afternoon when the team got called to a murder in the South of Norfolk. The military base was about twelve miles away and the season of shore leave and spring break was on. That meant drunken students mixed with marines and soldiers who had been imprisoned on their ships or in the military bases for far too long. No wonder that the police did overtime. But early this morning, when a bar already opened at nine o'clock, the body of an employee had been found in the restrooms.

The employee was a marine, Lieutenant Jacelyn Mendel, who had worked during her five week holiday in the bar-casino to earn some money for the wedding which she and her fiancée had planned for the coming summer. Now, her body was found on the wet floor, the water mixed with the blood. Her head was in the toilet bowl, her body hanging immobile down on the floor, her clothes on the lower side also wet – it was the toilet water covering the floor.

"She was found around eight thirty by a clerk who is supposed to open the bar and prepare the seats before the first waitresses arrive," a SOCO explained when the NCIS team entered the crime scene. Before entering the restrooms, Tony shot as many photos as possible before entering the actual scene. They put on paper slippers to not accidentally discard any evidence.

"Oh, dear God," Ducky muttered when he saw the body. He waited until McGee had drawn and outline and Marissa and Tony marked all the evidence with black number cards.

"Here's a footprint," McGee mentioned and pointed at the footprint of blood on the left side of the victim.

"He fled out of the window," Marissa said and took photos of the blood-footprint on the window bench.

"Might I now inspect the body?" Ducky asked.

"She's all yours," Tony said and let Ducky and Mr Palmer pass who tried to avoid stepping onto any evidence or into the puddle of blood that nearly covered the whole floor already.

While Ducky inspected the obviously visible injuries, Mr Palmer started putting numbered stickers all over the body to later reconstruct her position. "She has a dark red male on her left shoulder, it looks like a footprint. Tony, would you mind showing me the picture you just shot?"

Tony walked over and noticed, "he stepped with his foot on her to keep her head in the toilet bowl. He probably flushed the toilet to get some information out of her."

"Barkeeper says the safe was opened. About five hundred dollars are missing so far," Gibbs said when he came back from talking to the SOCOs.

"Then this poor lady was tortured for the code to open the safe. But even when she did, the killer wanted to kill her nevertheless, God bless her," Ducky said and the other agents nodded. This theory fitted, but still they needed to search as many proves as possible to either verify or discard their theory.

"Time of death, Ducky?" Gibbs asked, in the same mood he always seemed, whether at a crime scene or not.

Ducky sighed and Mr Palmer already picked up the temperature measure device. The agents turned around and searched for other evidence in the meanwhile. At least a little bit of dignity should be left for the victim. "According to the room temperature and that she was partly covered in cooling water, I'd say her death took place between eleven and two o'clock last night."

"The bar closed already at one," Marissa mentioned.

"And she was the one supposed to lock it. He probably surprised her when she wanted to close the bar," McGee said.

"What about evidence?" Gibbs wanted to know.

"We found a footprint so far. And this was probably a spontaneous robbery with the intention of a murder, he probably didn't plan it. Further evidence such as fingerprints or fibres might be found," Toy answered.

"Then find it," Gibbs ordered and left the room again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Ready for a chapter with a bit more action? ;) Please comment after having read it!**

Chapter 4

Time passed by and cases were solved. Tony was winning back confidence with the time and started to keep his life together for Kathleen and make a stable environment where she was supposed to grow up possible. Marissa grew into the team – more or less, considering what happened to the last two team members who had been working with McGee and Tony.

It was raining that afternoon when the director of NCIS received a phone call. Burdened with bad news that urged to be made public among the agents, he headed down the stairs and made the agents gather around him by whistling loudly. The new director, only working for a few months for NCIS now, was younger than his predecessors had been and much more energetic.

With only few words he explained what had happened, "I just received a call from the CIA deputy of Norfolk. They had received an anonymous warning about a planned attack at three different targets in the city. Military forces are already out there to secure the areas but another call was answered, the same anonymous person claiming that additional two targets have been proposed since the military had been alarmed. We cannot trust the caller but as among these targets are the naval base and headquarters, a kindergarten and two school complexes, we have to take it seriously.

"FBI forces have been told to evacuate the buildings but they are not sure to make it in time. They asked for assistance by NCIS special agents to help to prevent chaos and panic in Norfolk itself. We take along that the attack will be happening within the next three hours. More detailed information will be given through on communication channels five and seven as soon as you've put on your gear. So move, move, move!"

More hectically than agents should behave, they all ran down to the locker rooms and put on body armour, headsets and other stuff that would probably be needed. "If that's another hoax call..." Tony cursed since another one had made a police station in Baltimore panic only four days ago.

"Stop talking, and get into the cars. It's quite a drive to Norfolk and we're immediately needed," the deputy director said when he was standing right behind them. He walked away before any agent could answer. Within ten minutes, McGee, Tony and Marissa sat in one of the NCIS vans, fully armoured and armed. Gibbs had stayed behind to fill in a commanding post coordinating the troops.

New information was told through the communication channels, talking about a possible terroristic threat as no demands had been made so far. It was repeatedly pointed out that this was no training and that they were only there to support the military forces. However, they did not know who would attack, what would be attack and how the attack would be conducted – not even if anything was about to happen at all.

Only fifteen minutes later the agents arrived in downtown Norfolk. Most of the roads had already been blocked and military officers were running around. The operation leader divided the agents into different parties and Tony, McGee and Marissa were supposed to help evacuating a school complex, consisting of an elementary school, a Junior High and a High School. They jumped out of the van and ran over to some CIA agents wearing protective armour as well.

"The anonymous caller said that this building would be one of the targets. We do not know how the attack – if one does exist – will be performed. Either they already have explosion devices inside the building or it will come to an air attack. We're observing the air and most of the roads towards downtown have been blocked. FBI and Home Security are calming down the people as nothing has been released to the press yet," the agent in charge explained.

After further five minutes of instruction, about an hour left until the attack would probably start, the agents stormed into the building. The pupils had already been informed and stood ready in rows of two in the class rooms. Tony opened one of the doors of Junior High School and looked directly into the faces of twenty scared teenagers.

_My daughter shall never experience this kind of fear_, he thought and saw that the teacher was heading towards him. "You all go out into the corridor and put yourselves into rows of four with your school mates from the opposite room. There you wait until we leave the school building altogether, alright?" he said and when the children started moving, he headed to the next classroom. After only three minutes the corridor was filled with babbling children and sweating teachers.

"Alright, everyone shut up please!" Tony shouted as loud as he could. McGee, Marissa and an FBI officer were standing next to him. "We're now slowly walking out of the building. Nobody runs, nobody shouts or screams. Everything will be alright. As soon as we're out of the gate, you assemble yourselves in the huge area where you will be safe. All teachers please follow Special Agents Jones and Korsak," he added, pointing to the agents to his left and right. Then he turned around and let the way out of the building. Tension fell and he began to breathe more slowly when they left the building complex and entered the play area outside. They had to walk further and finally he stopped to guard the children out of the gate and the unsecure area.

The CIA officer in charge came over to the agents who had led the evacuation. "No news from our anonymous caller. Nothing else in sight, neither road nor air way. We'll have to search the area for explosion devices," he explained. "Both of you will search the third and fourth floor. The attack is supposed to start at four or later so I want you out of there at quarter to, no risks this time, you understand?"

Tony and McGee nodded and headed back to the building. With adrenaline flowing back into his blood, Tony jumped up the stairs, watching the other officers searching the lower floors. "Do you think this is a real threat?" McGee asked when they reached third floor.

"I don't know. But five targets all over Norfolk, especially schools and kindergartens shouldn't be taken as hoax calls immediately," Tony mentioned. "And I feel much safer since the children are out of here."

"But think about it. Who would dare to threaten this federal state, in such an extent? Someone really wants to piss of the government."

"In case you're proposing Israel, the situation has calmed down again. The old foes are our enemies again, Iran, Iraq, Saudi-Arabia and China," Tony muttered and they started looking under tables and into cupboards. "What the hell do they expect us to find? This school is huge!"

Suddenly their walkie-talkies cracked. "5-0-1 to all units. Explosion devices found at St. Bartholomew's kindergarten. Experts are on the way. Area will be secured within five minutes. 5-0-1 to all units, I repeat, explosion devices found. Keep your eyes open!"

"A kindergarten? They couldn't have seriously considered that!" Tony shouted and kicked over a table in frustration.

"Tony, calm down!"

"How? Were they really planning to blow up small, little children?"

"Perhaps they never planned that," McGee said and walked into the next classroom.

"What do you mean?" Tony wanted to know and followed him.

"Perhaps they called CIA themselves. They wanted us to panic and to evacuate all areas. They never wanted to hurt anyone, just create chaos."

"Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." If, tomorrow, I tell the press that someone will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!"

"Sounds like the Joker. 1989?" McGee asked.

"No, the newer version with Heath Ledgers," Tony commented. "We aren't going to find anything. Probably the kindergarten was the only target and the other ones were just distraction."

"I can't believe they wanted to blow up a kindergarten while it's full of innocent children."

"I doubt that as well. I think you're first theory was right," Tony said and didn't notice how surprised McGee was that they agreed on one thing. One never notices the changes happening to oneself.

"3-0-8 to Northern School Complex officers. We arrested a suspicious person. He says that there are explosion devices in the gym. Please answer," a voice said through the communications.

"That's us. Shall we check?" Tony asked.

"We got someone in the gym. Let's continue here," McGee decided. "There could still be something up here," he added while both agents climbed up to floor number four.

"The arrest was very quickly."

"Probably someone who wanted to see what he wanted to do," McGee said. "Another corridor. We got fifteen minutes left. We should be able to work through that when one takes the left side and the other one the right–"

McGee was not supposed to finish his sentence. The ground under their feet trembled, the quake becoming more intense and only then did they hear the loud 'bang'. It was a single noise, but loud and intense that their ears started hurting immediately. Instinctively, both agents let themselves fall to the ground, covering their heads with their hands and closing their eyes. Dust was trickling down. Plastering was dropping from the walls and they heard the cracking of fundament and the dumb noise of stones hitting the earth. Then it was silent for a moment, before the creaking started again.

As soon as they noticed that nothing was happening to the building they were in, both Tony and McGee stood up, looked at each other and without a word they headed to the classroom to their right, running towards the window. And it was exactly what they thought it would be. Where once had been the gymnasium, there was only a huge fungus-shaped cloud of dust and debris floating through the air as if gravity did not exist anymore.

"Holy shit," Tony muttered. When the air became clearer again, they could see the rubble sinking into the earth, where a crater-shaped hole indicated the former fitness hall. The huge building was only a pile of dirt, stones and wood anymore, the green grass area around it covered with light brown dust. People were brown as their surrounding, coughing, gasping for breath in the thick air.

Trying to either run away from the disaster or towards it to help. Ambulances had appeared out of nowhere, doctors and medical assistances were running all over the area, holding tissues in front of their mouths, but also started coughing. Agents in charge shouted at each other, ordering not to enter the collapsed building as it was too unstable and that the medical staff should wait for the firemen to secure the surroundings.

But despite all the noises, shouts and screams for help, no one talked into their walkie-talkies, no one thought about pressing the button and speaking. And not even the agents ordered to other areas in the city spoke, because they had all heard the explosion and they all knew what happened. And they knew that they would be informed as soon as the agents there had time to speak, time to think. And so it came that despite all the noise and voices down there, the fourth floor of the Junior High building was so silent that you could hear a pin drop meters away.

Finally realising what had just happened, Tony stumbled backwards and sank down onto one of the tables. He dropped his rucksack to the floor and opened his bullet-proof vest to better breathe. McGee leaned against a wall and closed his eyes, slowly sinking to the ground. It took a while until they started looking at each other, both exhausted, both sitting in the upper floor of the school.

"It was done on purpose I think," Tony finally said, still heavily sighing.

"This guy who had been arrested told the agents to search the gym. Only then it blew off. Before it's time," McGee agreed and looked at his watch. "It wasn't supposed to start before four o'clock."

"How late?"

"It's three-fifty-five."

"Damn shit," Tony muttered. Then they kept silence again, only interrupted by loudly breathing once in a while. Finally, their communication devices cracked again. You could hear someone sigh. Then saying, "seven agents missing, three in critical condition." There was a pause. "Five officer down." And then there was silence again.

Not only in the fourth floor, not only down on the ground where medical officers were running like hell, every agent became silent, at every target in Norfolk. Everyone seemed to fall silent because everyone could read the faces of the officers. And only the agent in charge, the Washington deputy director of CIA spoke to every single police officer out there, "we will get them. And we will punish them. For America."

**Please write me your opinion.**


	5. Chapter 5

**The following chapter is a summary of certain events of the Alex Rider- novel series by Anthony Horowitz. Also, wikipedia was used as a source. I do not own most of the following information and story events. This is probably now a crossover, however, you do not need to have read the Alex Rider books, this is what this chapter is for: introducing the new plot line.**

Chapter 5

Zeljan Kurst was a Yugoslavian business man and police officer during the 1970s and 80s. With the new government coming up he feared to be prosecuted for his many crimes. So instead he fled and scratched a living with several job in Eastern Europe until finally meeting people who had to be on the run like him. Together with Max Grendel, Julia Rothman and Winston Yu he founded an organised crime group called SCORPIA, standing for Sabotage, Corruption, Intelligence and Assassination.

This organisation had grown up to twelve head members in its heyday, until three of their criminal operations were prevented by a fourteen year old schoolboy who had been working for the British secret service. After the arrest of Kurst and the shame that SCORPIA was destroyed by a kid, the organisation was dissolved.

Several years later, in early 2012, a new organisation was founded, also of Italian origin, and it started calling themselves SCORPIA, to re-finding the heritage of the original organisation and to honour it with new criminal attacks, now focusing more on America and the West instead of paid attacks for rich people. After they failed twice as well, due to an NCIS team of Washington DC, the new SCORPIA organisation was dissolved as well, adding up to the shame of the previous members. Many of them had died, and the name SCORPIA was haunted and had become a synonym for failure due to underestimated police officers.

The arrest and prosecution of Zeljan Kurst had been a political nightmare, as several countries claimed that they wanted to conduct court martial. Finally, Kurst had been charged and found guilty and sent to a high security prison, the Southern Prison for cases requiring Intensive Care (SPIC), on a small South American island which unofficially belonged to the United States.

"A modern Alcatraz" it was called and shut off from the main land. Although very automatic, guards were position everywhere in case of power failure. Such a power failure was hardly possible as there were three independent generators as well as an intern gas tank to supply the island with electricity and heat in case of an attack or crisis. Of course, neither the additional gas nor the generators had ever been needed except for one accidental power outage about two years ago.

Only few people had ever been found guilty enough to be brought to this prison and so there were only two hundred international prisoners guarded by fifty watchers day and night. Since these prisoners had all been charged with corruption, arms or human trafficking or organised crime, they were mostly non-violent and there were hardly any fights on daily occurrence.

It was one of the places, like there were more than someone thought of, where no one would return when once sent there. Unfortunately, that was what most politicians and the other people being aware of the existence of this prison thought. Everyone knew that for the right price, everyone could get everything. Of course, prisoners had disappeared, prisoners with enough contact or enough money, but no one had ever broken out.

To break out, someone would need a rescue party from the outside, reaching the island unseen by the naval radar of both the States and Mexico. On the island, there was an electric fence crossing the beach which reached once around the island. Then there would be a seven kilometre walk – as of course there were only very few vehicles at all on the island. Then the wall started, it wasn't as high as expected and not as thick as expected. First reason was that no one was supposed to break in or out anyway, second reason had been a budget cut.

Every single square meter inside this wall was under surveillance by cameras, looked at by two guards at the same time. Of course, this did not sound much – but you couldn't pay more than two guys to play Doodle Jump the whole time. The footage displayed on five TV screens which these two guards stared at switched from camera to camera every ten seconds, covering the whole observed area within two minutes. Inside the huge complex, which contained everything from cells, over training and work areas, a small library and dining hall, there were doors everywhere, opened only automatically with a certain card and as too many movies showed how easy it was to steal the identity card of a watcher, every third door demanded iris scans.

Of course, one could say that a simple hacker could shut down the entire island, although the electricity could be immediately replaced by the generators, but the computer system running the whole facility was developed not by professionals working for the American government, but by students picked all over the world. They hadn't been told what they programmed, no one had programmed anything big. And then another few students matched the program codes together, so that no one knew too much about the project.

A very lot of people had worked on making the computer system secure and only few people were able to control it, so that maintenance was done every 14 days. Once a month by intern security guards, two of them had a professional computing science formation, and once a month by someone extern, who was told to keep silent about whatever he saw inside the prison.

Whatever happened on the island, stayed on the island. And no one ever had the intense desire to find out what happened if this was not the case.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"As it seems, no one has yet officially claimed responsibility," the speaker of the evening news announced.

"Is it true what they say?" Marissa asked when she just entered the 'office'. McGee and Tony who had been standing in front of the plasma screen between their desks turned around.

"No idea so far. Even if CIA knew, they wouldn't tell NCIS," McGee commented. "You alright?"

"Yes, I was far enough away from the explosion," she said. Agent Jones had been among the agents searching the lower floors of the High School building which directly bordered to the sporting area of the complex. Due to the explosion, the windows had burst and also injured agents in the classrooms. Marissa had been of the lucky ones. Only a few, slight scratches decorated her face and you could see that she wiped away the blood with her right sleeve. She just came from the General Hospital where she had accompanied several other agents and helped out due to her medical training.

"Anything else I missed?" she asked.

Tony shook his head. "The gym is the only location where the bomb detonated. The explosion devices in the kindergarten were disarmed and nothing was found at the other targets. A school and a kindergarten were the less secured areas but also the most cruel ones to attack."

"That's probably why they warned us before," Gibbs said who just walked down the stairs from a meeting with the other teams' bosses.

"You mean they didn't want to get anyone hurt, just blow stuff up?" Tony asked.

"Exactly. Both Al Qaeda and an Indian terror cell claimed responsibility as well as the Russian Criminal Society so none of them could have done it."

"Great, that means these people are still out there. But what was their motif?" Marissa asked.

"That's not our problem. CIA and Homeland Security will be working on it. We're just told to carry on with 'whatever stuff we have to do'. So go home, all of you. See you tomorrow," Gibbs said and sat down at his own desk. When the agents noticed that no more instructions were to come, they took their rucksacks and left the building again.

* * *

The next day started slower and calmer than expected. Tony arrived at work at exactly eight twenty and checked his e-mails. Surprisingly, there were none except for advertisements sent by eBay or Amazon. Only a little while later, both McGee and Marissa arrived as well. There hadn't been a call for a new case yet and Gibbs did not appear as well. Tony used the time to write some old reports which were overdue and sent them immediately to the Internal Data Storage. Around half past eleven, McGee was called to the Video conference room to monitor another's team interrogation with a naval officer over sea. Tim and another computer expert had to supervise the audio and video footage recorded during the talk.

He hadn't come back until half past twelve when Ducky came upstairs from the autopsy and proposed to Tony and Marissa to spend lunch time together in town. 'Like the old times', he had wanted to say but both he and Tony knew that it would never be 'the old times' again.

"Do you remember the last time we ate here?" Tony suddenly asked when they were half-way through their meals and ran out of discussion topics.

"The day Kate was kidnapped," Ducky said, making clear that he did not wanted to be reminded on another agent's death.

"Who was Kate?" Marissa asked interested.

"The agent who worked in the team before Ziva," Tony explained. Only a week ago he wouldn't have managed to approach the topic without bursting into tears. And he knew that the psychiatric help had been needed. "It was more than eight years ago since we last time ate here in this restaurant. There were different owners back then but the French fries still taste the same."

"Katelyn was abducted by an Israeli Mossad agent who had once intruded NCIS with a Hamas hostage situation. Only a year later, he shot her during a mission. At the end, he got punished for his crimes," Ducky gave her the short version.

"Not enough," Tony commented silently. "So," he tried to get back some of his former mood, "I would say your job is haunted, Marissa. Better keep both eyes open," he said with a smile.

"No problem, I'll do," she laughed back.

* * *

"Anything new?" McGee asked when he entered Abby's lab.

She quickly closed the open programs on the monitor. "No, not at all. I mean, how am I supposed to find something new when we're not working on a case? This is completely impossible, Tim–"

"Calm down, Abby," he interrupted her and looked at the task bar. "You hiding something?"

"No, of course not. What should I? There's nothing to be hidden."

"You know you're a bad secret keeper. What's up?"

She sighed, fully aware of her lousy lying skills. "The new director had asked to run a full diagnose of the explosion from yesterday. I got some materials from a friendly FBI guy working in digital forensics. We worked together on programming a 3D-analysis of the attack from yesterday, showing both the explosion of the hospital and how it would have looked at the kindergarten if it had blown up."

"And what did you find out?"

"It's ultra classified, McGee. And with ultra I mean, highly, intensively classified," she argued.

McGee only raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, I'll show you," she decided and started to run the program. First, it showed a 3D-animation with the camera flying once around the gymnasium, also picturing the school complex behind in great detail. Then it switched to displaying the location of the explosive devices. "There were four C4-packages on each wall of the building and also two on the inside and outside of the corner arcs," Abby explained.

A countdown started and first the devices in the corner exploded, the building started cracking and the corners starting to fall down, leaving both the roof and the main walls intact. Only twenty seconds later did the other devices go off, tearing down the walls as well. This led to the destabilisation of the integrity of the roof which then collapsed and broke into three main pieces before even hitting the ground.

"You see how they did it?" Abby asked.

McGee only nodded, still amazed by the great computer graphics and the detail of explosion. "They planned it very thoroughly."

"Exactly. And we ran several tests. This is one of the safest way to completely destroy a building. The most explosions leave an unstable ruin which could fall down anytime, leaving a great risk. But this gym collapsed completely, burying everyone inside. It was supposed to show how deadly such an explosion can be. And it was definitely done by professionals."

"I assume they're already searching the most advanced bomb experts which are currently available on the black market?"

"Yes, they are. And this guy from digital forensics told me that CIA had fifteen of them under surveillance. And they lost three of them only one week ago. And these three people's bodies appeared last night floating on the Thames."

"They wanted to get rid of the weak links," McGee realised. "Thank you, Abby."

"You never got this information from me, understood?" Abby shouted after him but McGee had already left the lab.

**Please, please, please review! And not only the same people!**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

It was a nice summer morning and temperatures rose with the sun-up. Caroline, living in a small apartment with her two daughters and her younger sister, left the flat in the fifth floor of a nearly uninhabited building. Everything was dusty and old, and probably their flat was the cleanest and tidiest place within a mile. It was five o'clock and already over twenty degrees centigrade which promised a sweaty afternoon.

The sun had hardly reached the horizon, but Caroline wanted to go jogging before the heat became too intense. So she ran through the little village, the sandy streets of the residential neighbourhood until she reached the small park with its dying trees and the dry pond whose bottom was more a mud-wrestling playground for children than an actual little sea.

Caroline had nearly completely jogging around the former pond and was about to start the way back to her flat when she noticed two strange men a few meters ahead. Despite the rising temperatures, they were wearing suit trousers and white shirts. _Looks like the Mafia,_ she thought, but they wouldn't get out at a time like this, dressed like this. _Probably from a cartel. But it's odd that I never saw them before. _After a while, one knew the other criminals in a little town like Potenza. And after all, Caroline and Katarina were mainly working in Rome where the Bertani cartel, formerly led by the three now deceased brothers Edoardo, Federico and Alessio, was coming to power again. Now, under the hand of Antonio Bertani, one of the three brothers' cousins. He had gathered a lot of friends within the last year, especially in South Italy and other countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.

But when Caroline came closer, she noticed that this wasn't two usual guys walking through the empty area of Potenza's South Park. They placed themselves into her way and she finally stopped right in front of them.

"Are you Caroline Montebello?" the taller guy asked with a Greek accent. She was surprised as he looked quite Italian.

"If so?" she paid back. She wasn't in the mood for small talk. She was sweating heavily, first because it was hotter than the days before and second because she had been running faster than she used to.

"We want to talk to you," the other one said. He was not so tall, had dark coloured hair so that he wouldn't attract too much attention in Italy, but his eyebrows were blonde.

"I think I look quite busy, and sweaty," she answered. Perhaps they hadn't been sent by any cartel or traffic organisation.

"We would like you to come with us," the first man said again. He looked quite serious and uncomfortable with the situation – or with Italy in general.

"I assume if I do not want to, you'll make me to," Caroline said and regained her normal pulse. She'd probably not return to her flat any soon. She only hoped that whoever these men were, they didn't send someone to visit Katarina as well. Her sister was getting Scarlet ready for pre-school and Carey for daily care in a town nearby.

"You are right with your assumption," the second man said with a warm smile. He definitely was the more social one.

"Alright, I don't have to tell you that I don't have all day," she said carefully. She knew that when men like that talked to her, she would get problems one way or the other. And that killing her way through any obstacles was probably going to be needed. The men accompanied her, the Greek leading the way while the other one, whose accent reminded her to northern British, was watching her step. They walked about one hundred meters before they brought her to a white van. She had to enter the backside where they sat down on a small bench without safety belts.

"I also assume it would not be of use if I asked where we are heading?" she wanted to know with intense sarcasm in her voice. The Greek looked as serious as always, but the other one seemed much friendlier.

"No, it wouldn't."

"May I tell my sister that I will come home later – in case that you aren't going to kill me?"

"Yes, but after that you will have to give me your mobile," he said.

She nodded. Sounded fair. She quickly typed an SMS to Katarina not to worry and then shut off her phone so that they couldn't search it. He took it and let it slid into his left trouser pocket. It was a twenty minute drive and without windows she had no idea where they would be. Caroline was led out and she found herself in an abandoned train station. There were only two railways and dedicating from the environment, she guessed that they were outside of Potenza in some kind of formerly industrial area which was now abandoned and only inhabited by people with criminal intent.

They entered an office in the stone building. It was the only room without broken windows but two of them were opened to let at least a bit of sticky air get out. "Please leave the door open," the man standing at the wooden, dusty desk said to the Greek who entered the room last. The person who unmistakably was the boss turned around to face Caroline. He seemed to be in his mid-fifties but looked much older, had grey hair neatly combed backwards and wore a suit as well, with the black jacket open. Whoever they were, they weren't used to the Italian summer heat – or just used to air conditioner.

"So you are Caroline Montebello," he began.

"If I weren't, your men wouldn't have brought me here," she answered with a side-look to the British man, ignoring the Greek guy who stood like an immobile plastic statue next to the door.

The older man smiled. _Probably it is just the Greek one without humour,_ she thought. "I am sorry for abducting you so suddenly but we couldn't risk attracting more attention than we already did."

"I'm sorry?"

"You are under constant police surveillance, Miss Montebello. And you are aware of that or you wouldn't carefully get rid of your shadow every time you meet someone higher in the hierarchy of crime."

"So it was you who had been following me the last two weeks," she suddenly realised. "I just thought it was another police agency who didn't know about my surveillance status."

"So you noticed. Might I ask when?"

"Several times. Most notably when I was out four days ago, meeting up with José Ligueres."

"That had been your turn, Petrelis," the grey-haired man turned to the Greek one. He did not comment and so the boss continued talking to Caroline, "do you know who we are?"

"I am pretty sure that you are going to tell me," she answered.

"You are right in that case. But first I want to talk about the information I retrieved from your official FBI file."

"I take along you acquired it in the most legal way," she teased.

"It says you studied at university in Great Britain with a small scholarship – and honestly, I think I don't want to know where the rest of the money came from. You were a murder suspect in the case of your parents' death but charges were dropped – without any explanation. You have been involved in several smaller coups, finally risen to a hit man with a certain reputation while your sister got engaged with a drug boss. That did not go well and you both had to look for a new job, didn't you?"

He looked up from the papers on the desk and stared at her for a few seconds. She remained motionless.

"Then it says you appeared in the United States, working for an organisation calling itself Scorpia. And this organisation rose and fell twice due to the interactions of an NCIS team – which you continued to cross paths with in the following months. You even helped one of their agents... I don't know why you did this but it's pretty impressive that you always got out without being permanently arrested. The last entry is about the attempted murder of Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo which you prevented... and ended up being stabbed. You escaped from hospital a few months ago and returned to Italy after two weeks in Japan."

"Nice that you wrote me a CV," she said slightly aggressively, but patiently.

"What can you tell me about Scorpia?"

"The organisation I had been a member of?"

"What else?"

"There had been another SCORPIA before."

"How was the other Scorpia organisation founded? The one you were part of," he answered calmly.

Caroline had a quick look around. The Greek guy seemed to be bored, staring at his feet, covering them in the sand. The Briton stood half a meter behind her, un-relaxed, watching her carefully. She sighed and then tried to formulate an answer that would not get her killed, "Scorpia was a criminal organisation founded by Zeljan Kurst, Max Grendel and other criminals. Most of them had political or police records. They executed certain jobs for the right amount of money. Finally, their plans had been crossed by a school boy thrice which led to their destruction. Dr Medici and few others had tried to re-establish the organisation's initial plans, including the rise to power within the international underground. This new organisation failed twice as well, this time by the hands of an NCIS team of Washington DC. Scorpia had become ridiculous and as all members were either arrested or murdered, they ceased to exist."

"You are still here."

"Because I place my loyalties very carefully. And I tend to have a plan B."

"How had you first come into contact with Dr Medici?"

"How do you know that it was Dr Medici recruiting me, and not someone else?"

"You had been one of the members of the re-foundation of Scorpia. That isn't something that stays secret for a long time. You also got your sister into the organisation when you had to kill another member."

Caroline hesitated before she went on, "Dr Medici had heard about my small reputation I had had as a hacker. I had tried to stay very anonymous at the time and when he noticed that I was also working as a contract killer from time to time, he thought he could use me for the organisation he planned to re-build. So finally he contacted me by simply approaching me in a bar, if you want to have that detail."

"What does S-P-I-C tell you?"

"I beg you pardon?" she asked, not confused, but suddenly knowing that they were checking her background for something a lot worse coming up.

"The Southern Prison for cases requiring Intensive Care."

"As you asked me about it, you can be sure that I know what it stands for, but I do not understand your question," she said carefully.

"What do you know about it?"

"Well, as the name says it is a prison," she said and shortly turned to the Briton with hesitation. He remained motionless. "It is also called 'the modern Alcatraz' and security is very high so that no one can escape."

"And if we wanted someone to escape, what would you recommend?"

"Bribe the guards. I heard it would work from time to time."

"Bribery leaves traces. And we do not like weak links."

"Perhaps it would help if you told me _who_ you are," she answered with a smile.

"We are people being interested in getting Zeljan Kurst out of prison," the boss said, leaving some time to make the words sicker in. "This name rings a bell?"

"Yes."

"Did you know that he is serving a life sentence in this prison?"

"Yes."

"And isn't it kind of an irony that you, being one of the Computing Science students having been elected to program the island's defence parameters, participated in an organisation that he founded a few decades ago?"

She kept silence for a few seconds before she was able to speak. "Am I right if I assume... that you just kidnapped me in front of the eyes of my CIA shadow to ask me about the computer program I programmed several years ago for an American prison because you want to get out an old criminal who had been the founding member of one of the many criminal organisations that exist these days?"

"The point with your CIA shadows is not quite accurate. None of them witnessed your abduction," the Briton behind her suddenly awoke. "They were all dead before we approached you. By now, CIA will have noticed that you escaped surveillance."

"Great," she muttered. All the makings of a perfect start of a day. "I did not install the computer system on my own and neither can I shut it down."

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you," the boss said.

"Are you asking me to do what I think you are asking me to do?" Caroline wanted to know.

"We want you to help us to break into one of the most secure prisons of the United States."

"That's how most of the American action movies begin."

"Yes, but they hardly have a computer genius on their side who had worked out the defences and knows pretty much about them."

"What makes you think I _am_ on your side? Did I miss the blackmailing part?" she asked.

"I know that you hardly are interested in money, Miss Montebello, I noticed that while reading your very interesting life story. But we can offer you something else instead. You had joined Scorpia because of its power. You want power, Miss Montebello."

"Yeah, because I learnt that the guys working higher up don't get killed that easily."

"But you aren't a guy. You are a woman. And who would want to kill you?"

"Oh, I can tell you some names."

"And we could take care of them."

"What exactly do you want and what exactly will I get for it?" she asked, now indeed being a bit impatient.

"We want you to help us to free Zeljan Kurst successfully. For that, you will become one of our head members. And there are only ten of twelve so far."

"In case that you're trying to tell me that you're SCORPIA, you should better look for a less haunted name," she answered with an inner sigh. _Seriously?_

"We _are_ SCORPIA. The ones directly descending from the original organisation. Zeljan Kurst has been in contact with us for more than five years now and we have made progress."

"Progress in what?"

"Building up a stable network. We are growing and only then will we step into the spotlight again."

"And the escape of Zeljan Kurst will bring you into that spotlight, and with that coup you will regain your reputation. That neither a fourteen year old school boy nor a NCIS agent with severe depressions can stop you now?"

He smiled. "Exactly," he said, taking her sarcastic comment with humour. "And we would like to have you back in the game, Miss Montebello. Our current members are direct relatives or best friends of former SCORPIA members. But you are the only one of the newer organisation that would be worth a membership here."

Caroline didn't respond.

"I know that you might want to think about that. You can. George will drive you back to your flat. You might as well talk to your sister about the offer. But of course no one else shall know. When you do what we demand of you, we will get your sister into a nice position within Scorpia as well and we could really use a good link to the Italian Mafia, especially since we chose Italy as our main country. As you see, we try to keep SCORPIA international. We will pay you a visit tomorrow morning. You should have made a definite decision until then." With that, he nodded to George who led her out of the office again. They stepped into another car, a dark blue VW, this time even with seat belts.

None of them said a word during the drive and Caroline noticed that she had been right with the location of the train station. "I know that you have your doubts about SCORPIA," George, the Briton said, when they had arrived in front of Caroline's flat. "But you also know what you will reach when you help us. Right now, you're only the small hit man again. You do your job, you get your money. Police observes you day and night. Don't you want to have a more secure job? Where you can finally sleep calmer again?"

"See you tomorrow," Caroline said and stepped out of the car. She watched him drive away before she entered the apartment building and walked up the stairs. She knocked at the door and Katarina opened.

When she entered without a word and took off her shoes, her younger sister noticed, "care to tell me what this was all about?"

"First, I think, I need a shower," Caroline answered and vanished into the bathroom after quickly hugging her little sister.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"We have a new case," McGee said when he put down the phone.

"How can anyone think about cases when we're on critical alert," Tony complained.

"Only the agencies are on critical alert. For normal people time passes normally. They just lived with the explosion," Marissa said. "It wasn't them experiencing it," she added while she put the gun into her holster and picked up her rucksack.

"But there are people out there planning the next attack. A school, a kindergarten,...!"

"Tony, you have become quite sentimental since Kathleen," McGee commented.

"Wouldn't you?" the older agent asked and walked towards the elevator. McGee and Marissa exchanged looks. They followed him and arrived at the crime scene only twenty minutes later, about the same time that Gibbs appeared after his early-morning meeting with Agent Fornell. No agent dared to ask what it had been about, of course, but every agency had switched to higher alert. A terroristic attack without anyone seriously claiming responsibility meant no good. There had been made no announcements to the public and the risen safety had made changes very discreetly so that no one really noticed.

It was early afternoon when the team arrived and together with Gibbs they walked into the grubby hotel hallway. There was a long corridor until they arrived at the reception where a local police officer was talking to the receptionist. "The body was found in room 202," he informed the NCIS agents and followed by Ducky and Mr Palmer they walked upstairs.

Tony already smelled the decay scent on half way to the room. "Are you ready?" another police officer commented. Tony already had a bad feeling when he noticed the pale face of her.

Then he entered the room and the terrible odour became worse. The body must have hung here for a while, he thought. And then he realised _what_ he thought and looked at the hanging body.

"Well, this was obviously thoroughly planned," Ducky commented. And indeed, the murderer must have brought his utensils to the crime scene.

Tony walked around the body and looked up to the ceiling. Someone had taken his time to fix a metal plate on the wood ceiling, which was connected to a chain hanging down. On the lower end, there was a kind of bracket or clamps. The person was naked and hanging upside down, his balls literally clamped into the brackets. The body was immobile floating in the air, only his testicles holding him up. They were hardly recognisable balls in dark lilac colour. The penis was stretched and looking like white glass right under the brackets, only gaining paler colour further down. The skin was very pale, only the head and upper chest were red, as the blood had flown downwards. His eyes were closed, his legs in an usual position, pointing sideward due to rigor mortis.

"This is disgusting," he muttered out of his mind. Who the hell would put him up there? Who had the strength – and who had the stomach to do such thing?

Without a comment, Ducky silently picked the temperature measuring device. It was a deadly silent in the whole room. Everyone was shocked and the forensic technicians tried to make no sound while numbering and photographing the evidence. Ducky sighed heavily before he walked around the hanging corpse and put the measuring device into the anus. "The time cannot be exactly calculated due to the unusual position of the corpse. The cooling blood has left this part of the body very quickly," he explained and the device began to peep. He took it out and looked at the ciphers. "But nevertheless, I would say that he is dead for about twelve hours now."

"What about the decay scent? It's much stronger than usual?" Tony said. Was it only his sensitive nose?

"I think I can explain this," Mr Palmer, who had been examining the body's head, claimed. Ducky kneed down next to him. "There are several grubs inside his mouth which had been eating the flesh and who have also scuttled into the trachea."

"Someone must have deliberately placed these insects in here to make dental recognition useless. We will probably need the help of forensic entomology," Ducky added.

"What about fingerprints analysis?" Gibbs asked.

"No result on the quick search," McGee answered.

"I don't think this is necessary," the police officer in charge who had just entered the room, said. "His name is Manuel Sochero, he is a politician and should have appeared in his office this morning after a two-week vacation. There he would have signed a petition against another, higher politician. Without his vote, the other politician could stay in his position. It's a lot of politics, I guess, and that's not really my cup of tea."

"Neither is it yours," Fornell said to Gibbs before he could open his mouth. The FBI agent had only just appeared in the doorstep and quickly looked to the ground when noticing the body.

"You taking away each of our cases now?" Gibbs asked.

"I'm sorry that NCIS had been called. But we have found two worn uniforms in this room so we wanted NCIS on the case first," a SOCO said.

Gibbs nodded and looked back at Fornell.

"I have only been sent here to clear the crime scene. A special unit of CIA is taking over, they claim this murder to be in relation with the attack a few days ago. This man here should have personally brought some files from the crime lab in Norfolk to the CIA office in Washington. I assume that you haven't accidentally found the explosives analysis?"

Gibbs shook his head.

"But they surely have backups in the lab, don't they?" Marissa asked.

"Yes, they did. Until the lab suffered from an unexplicable fire last night and the server of them had been hacked. They're slowly gaining back some information, but we think that something wants to remain undiscovered. Whoever bombed the school did a mistake, and now they're trying to cover it up. And they're taking a lot of risks to do so..."

With that words, NCIS had to pack up their things and were put back on the streets.

"Unbelievable," Gibbs muttered and the agents hurried to get in the car before their boss drove away.

Katarina woke up by an awkward noise. She lay silent for a time and only suspected another group of drunks on the street. But then she heard the distinct sound of footsteps and was awake all of sudden. She sat straight up in bed and slowly slid into her house shoes. She tiptoed to the door and leaned her head against it. There definitely was someone in their flat. She walked a few steps backwards and opened the night table drawer. Her fingers clenched around the semi-automatic when the door flung open. Instinctively, she raised her arms and pointed her gun at the intruders. There were two men, both pointing their own guns at her.

Katarina heard a shout and Caroline was pushed into her bedroom by a third man. They all wore clothes matching to the scene, but the man themselves didn't. They wore too pale for living in Italy. "CIA, put down your gun," the third man said.

Katarina looked over to her older sister who only nodded. "What do you want?" she asked.

"Some of our men died."

"We didn't do it," Caroline said firmly.

"They were here to observe you."

"They were operating on foreign soil. I assume the Italian secret service won't be happy," she answered.

The third man smiled and came closer. "You cannot simply kill agents of CIA and get away with it. Your cartel might own half the cops, but remember, there's still the other half."

"We did not kill your men. Didn't you listen?" Katarina said angrily.

"Then who did?"

Both sisters remained silent. When CIA did house visits, it was better to keep silent than to lie at them.

"Did you order their cold murder?" one of the other agents wanted to know.

Caroline shook her hands. "I had nothing to do with it. I had only heard about it when it had happened. What should I have done? Call you and tell that my shadows were just killed?"

"This is the last warning, Miss Montebello. Both of you," he said ignoring her rhetoric question. "One more thing and we'll arrest you and I'll move everything to get you both accused and charged." He turned around immediately and left the flat, followed by his two colleagues.

"Nice people," Katarina commented while Caroline hurried in the room where her daughters were. Carey was still sleeping but Scarlet sat fixedly on her bed.

"Everything alright?" Caroline asked and sat down next to her. Katarina leaned against the wall inside the room and regarded the baby sleeping calmly.

Scarlet nodded. "Who were these men?"

"They were from the police from America. They were here to check on us."

"Did they want you arrested?"

"Yes, they do. But they will not be able to do it. Because we pay attention. We do everything to not lose you, okay?"

The four-year-old nodded.

"So, what about returning to sleep? It's school time tomorrow," Caroline said warmly and kissed her on her front head. "Sleep well." She stood up and left the room. Katarina closed the door behind them and pushed her sister into the living room.

"I don't want to tell you it's too big – but it's too big. CIA is on you already and even if they're Scorpia or not, you shouldn't risk it anymore," she hissed.

"You are rising through the ranks of Italian's most fear crime organisation and you tell me what to do? You're second-head of the Bertani cartel and that's not less dangerous."

"I'm getting in contact with the right people. High profile criminals who don't get into prison. And they can get me out of there as well. When I get close enough, I can get on their level."

"Yeah, just sleep with enough people in suits and kill enough people on your way. It'll solve all problems!" Caroline shouted in a low-voice back. Her daughters shouldn't hear them argue.

"I'm not the one to watch two daughters. Well, actually I am."

"Oh, is it that? That you'd rather go off screwing big wheels instead of helping your sister to get her life back on."

"You got pregnant a second time!"

"It wasn't my fault. You know that," Caroline said and sat down on the small couch. She covered her face in her hands.

"I'm sorry, that wasn't fair," Katarina admitted and sighed. "Carey really wasn't your fault," she added and sat down aside her to put her arm around her shoulder.

"You had Edoardo and I had Yassen. It's only a coincidence that I had time to really build a family...but you were the one who wanted to settle down. I had only been his girlfriend, and I had thought we would have time. But you were the one already acting, you were the one being a grown-up. You got...engaged," Caroline muttered and wiped away a tear running down her cheek.

Katarina lay her head against her shoulder. "And now it's the two of us and we'll manage to get on...together, alright?"

Caroline nodded and silently the two sister hugged. "We should really go back to bed," Caroline commented after a while.

**I would - indeed - appreciate reviews.**

**PS: I don't bite.**

**PPS: Unless - **


	9. Chapter 9

**I'm sorry that I couldn't upload earlier but I have too much stuff to do. I got ideas for at least four new fanfictions (1 DW, 2 ST and 1 NCIS) but I have no time to write. I will try to continue uploading this story but my last exam of the first exam phase will be on 9th of July, so expect more activity of me after that. Not to mention that I got to prepare the second exam phase in September...**

Chapter 9

It was 25 days later that the team got another case that was different to the usual ones. Actually, no murder was usual. Each and every one of them were individual and stated someone's feeling, someone's opinion. A murder was not such a light thing to talk about like all the TV series and movies used to do. Although Washington DC had oceanic climate, it was a hot summer morning and the temperatures were rising non-stop.

"How the hell can he drink coffee?" Marissa asked when they picked their rucksacks from the NCIS-van and observed Gibbs calmly nipping his coffee while talking to the jogger who had found the body.

"This man is dead for about four hours now, so he was probably murdered between six and seven o'clock this morning," Ducky said and wiped the temperature measuring device clean and handed it to Mr Palmer.

"Someone was meeting this guy here," McGee commented and photographed the different set of footprints. "Size 9, a woman's sport shoe, I'd guess her for about one meter eighty high."

"And you wonder why you haven't got a girlfriend?" Tony teased him. "And here's his cell," he said when he founded the phone in the inner jacket pocket. He put it into a plastic bag and named it with his name, location of finding, date, time and case number.

"I hacked the phone," Abby said with a big smile when McGee and Tony entered her lab.

"Congrats," McGee answered surprised about why Abby was so happy.

"And I found this," she explained and opened the window showing the connection between phone and computer.

"He's keeping his schedule on his phone?" Tony asked. "My God, he has been found with drugs and writes down when and where to purchase them? That's really stupid."

"But like that he can't come too late to meetings, can he?" McGee asked.

"That's not what I wanted to show you," Abby said. "By the way, he had noted the meeting of this morning as well. He was supposed to meet at 6 am at the North Park where you found him – and look, he wrote down 'K, H – bring $'."

"That looks like his apartment," Marissa mentioned. She had just entered the lab as well and carried a box of new evidence from the flat of the victim. "He wasn't clean, but tidied everything up. Books in alphabetical order, movies in chronological order, everything. And his drugs sorted by type. We assume that he was a dealer, but not only involved into drugs but also lower crime," she explained.

"So he was there to buy some new stuff," McGee deduced.

"He hadn't had much with him, so he was murdered before the deal could be established," Abby added.

"But if he had dealt with that other person, wouldn't he – or if McGee is right with his footprints – she have taken the rest of the drugs he carried?" Tony wondered loudly.

"Not if the deal wasn't about drugs. Perhaps she promised him drugs, but then wanted to hire him for a small job. That's the way it worked for him, we heard. The other guys in the apartment building were very cooperative when you threatened them with a house search," Marissa said.

"You're all missing the point," Abby intervened. "He has marked another meeting for today. At 1 pm," she said and zoomed in the virtual time schedule.

"If agree, re-meet at 1pm," McGee read. "Wow, he left an address."

"No one ever expects their phones to be searched," Marissa said.

"It's a hotel. Perhaps his killer is still there. He won't know that we can trace him back with this idiot's cell phone schedule," Tony noticed alarmed. McGee and Marissa nodded and rushed with him to the elevator.

"Thanks, Abs," Abby muttered silently, sighed, and turned back to the computer.

Ten minutes later already did the four agents step out of the car in front of the hotel. It was only a small one and very hidden in the back of a dark alley. The temperature had increased even more and all of them were sweating under bullet-proof vests. Trash lying around and organic waste inside the rubbish containers were stinking and Tony had to hold his hand over his mouth when they passed the small street. The smell became better when reaching the hotel. It was an old building and plastering was flaking off from the walls. Gibbs entered first and told Marissa to stay outside and secure this entrance. McGee and Tony followed their boss inside. At the reception, a bald, fat guy was reading a one year old edition of The Green Lantern. "What can I do for you?" he asked bored.

"NCIS. Who's in room 347?" Gibbs asked. He nodded over to McGee and pointed at a back entrance.

"Sarah Smith," the guy answered when he looked it up on a very old computer.

"Great. An alias," Tony muttered but Gibbs was already climbing up the stairs. McGee stayed behind, in case that whoever they were going to find was about to flee.

Tony was a little bit out of breath when they reached the third floor. They walked along the corridor and around a corner until they reached the room. "Shall we first knock?" Tony asked and Gibbs nodded.

He knocked three times and shouted, "NCIS. Please open the door!"

First, they heard nothing at all, suddenly something like a vase hit the ground. Tony stepped back when Gibbs kicked in the door which opened with a loud bang. There was no one in the room but the window on the opposite side was unmistakably open. A plastic vase lay on the dirty carpet, water still dripping out.

"Look, boss, the boots," Tony said and pointed at a pair of dirty boots in a corner. But the boss had already ran to the window. There was a fire escape ladder leading down to the roof of the next building. He could only see a shillhouette disappearing out of his point of view. He touched his earpiece, "Marissa, McGee. Suspect fled over the fire escape. He or she is on the next building's roof."

Gibbs was about to run out of the room, when Tony noticed, "boss. It's a woman."

The boss came back and had a look into the bag which lay opened on the bed. Someone had been packing already. Some shirts lay across the bed, most of them already folded neatly.

Both of them took the stairs down and ran out of the building where they already spotted Marissa at the end of the street. She was kneeling on someone who she just put on handcuffs. McGee ran out of the building after them. "Wow, the probie got her," Tony remarked, but his good mood was immediately gone when they came closer to the suspect. "Oh no," he muttered and put back his gun into his holster again. She definitely was known to the team.

Tony entered the interrogation room on his own. He wondered why Gibbs didn't want to conduct the interview. He sat down and opened the file of the woman in front of him.

"Doesn't look good, Katarina," he noticed. She didn't answer, so he continued. "Forensics analysed the earth under the boots we found in your apartment. The composition of the earth matches the soil in the park where we found this person here," he took a photo and placed it directly in front of her. She took a long look, her face expressing nothing, and she looked back at him.

"There is a certain species of ants living in the park, but it's hardly possible to get them into nature conservation. However, larvae in a specific stadium were found both under your boots and at the crime scene."

"Couldn't it have been possible that I walked there – with my boots, in case I wore them, through the park _before _the murder happened?" she asked calmly.

"First of all, you wore the boots. We found socks whose fibres were matching those inside the boots. And inside the socks we found your DNA."

"How can you be so sure that it was my DNA when a proper test takes at least ten hours and you arrested me less than seventy minutes ago?"

"We – will match the found skin particles to you," Tony corrected and cursed himself. So bluffing wasn't the right thing to do towards her. "And secondly," he resumed, "we found blood inside the footprint at the crime scene. Would the blood have been added later, the drop would have dried on the soil, as it could hardly absorb any liquids. But the blood had been stomped into the footprint, so the blood was first – and then came the footprint."

Tony looked at her for a while, her tranquillity had vanished. She wiped away a strand of hair hanging down into her face and stared at the body picture taken during the autopsy in front of her.

"Either you tell us now why and for whom you killed that man, or it is time to call your lawyer," Tony mentioned and then added, "you have been sloppy, Katarina. I wouldn't have expected that from you...you hadn't had enough time to get rid of the boots, didn't you?"

Slightly, she nodded, still not saying a word. That moment, the door went open and Gibbs entered the room. He threw his mobile phone onto the table. "Call your lawyer," he ordered and waited until she hesitatingly picked it up. "Now!"

After she had explained a lawyer her situation, she put the mobile back on the table. "He will be here in twenty minutes," she noted. But Gibbs pushed the phone back to her. "And now call your sister."

"What?"

"Just call her. Explain what happened," Gibbs said and left the room without another word.

"Just – do it," Tony advised her and Katarina dialled her number.

It rang several times before Caroline answered the phone. Tony observed closely, and wasn't surprised that Katarina switched to Italian. Luckily, Tony had brushed up his Italian only a little while ago. Katarina explained the situation, and probably received some advises how to react now. When she hang up, she gave the mobile back to the special agent.

"How did she take it?" he asked.

"Better than I would have thought. I assume she expected me getting caught sooner or later anyway," Katarina sighed.


End file.
